ler writings not reprinted.

From that time to the present, neither his industry nor his energy has
abated; but he is probably at his best in the several remarkable essays
on Blanco White, Bishop Patterson, Tennyson, Leopardi, and the position
of the Church of England. The reader spoiled for the Scotch quality of
weight by the "light touch" which is the graceful weapon of the age,
wonders, when reading these essays, that Mr. Gladstone has not more
assiduously cultivated the instinct of style,--sentence-making. Milton
himself has not a higher conception of the business of literature; and
when discussing these congenial themes, Mr. Gladstone's enthusiasm does
not degenerate into vehemence, nor does he descend from the high moral
plane from which he views the world.

It is the province of the specialist to appraise Mr. Gladstone's Homeric
writings; but even the specialist will not, perhaps, forbear to quote
the axiom of the pugilist in the Iliad concerning the fate of him who
would be skillful in all arts. No man is less a Greek in temperament,
but no man cherishes deeper admiration for the Greek genius, and nowhere
else is a more vivid picture of the life and politics of the heroic age
held up to the unlearned. While the critic may question technical
accuracy, or plausible structures built on insufficient data, the laity
will remember how earnestly Mr. Gladstone insists that Homer is his own
best interpreter, and that the student of the Iliad must go to the Greek
text and not elsewhere for accurate knowledge.

But Greek literature is only one of Mr. Gladstone's two passions, and
not the paramount one. That he would have been a great theologian had he
been other than Mr. Gladstone, is generally admitted. And it is
interesting to note that while he glories in the combats of the heroes
of Hellas, his enthusiasm is as quickly kindled by the humilities of
the early Church. He recognizes the prophetic quality of Homer, but he
bows before the sublimer genius of an Isaiah, and sees in the lives and
writings of the early Fathers the perfect bloom of human genius and
character.

MACAULAY

From 'Gleanings of Past Years'

Lord Macaulay lived a life of no more than fifty-nine years and three
months. But it was an extraordinarily full life, of sustained exertion;
a high table-land, without depressions. If in its outer aspect there
be anything wearisome, it is only the wearisomeness of reiterated
splendors, and of success s